I think this card is a lot of fun. I love the out-of-kilter angle, looking up the stairwell, mirroring the out-of-kilter mania in the woman's eye. Even her glass is tilted. It looks like blood in the glass to me.

Is she going up the stairs or down? Has she just met someone, or about to?

Also, what is the building that the moon is lurking behind? It looks like the onion domes of a Russian Orthodox church.

She seems to be a villain of sort. She's dressed in red and wear red lipstick, she's vibrant, bold and over confident. She's about to laugh devilishly because she is so certain to win. She is a seductress and possibly a vampire as well, with that red drink and her red lips. She kind of reminds me of that tale by La Fontaine where the milkmaiden is carring milk, and while she walks, she is so busy daydreaming about what she will do with the money of the sale of the milk, that she falls and drops the bowl containing the milk and she loses everything. That woman on the card has that smile like she won already, and that makes her careless, and she's making projects in her head but the deed is not fully done yet and anything can still happen.

That woman on the card has that smile like she won already, and that makes her careless, and she's making projects in her head but the deed is not fully done yet and anything can still happen.

I agree! The usual 7/Cups is about daydreaming and fantasizing about possible futures. Our young vampire (?) maiden is literally "below stairs" toasting herself and dreaming, it seems, about all she's going to do and be once she is in control of that castle.

Wrapped only in a red drape and with that satisfied smile on her face, I get the feeling that she been "transformed" in a bite that was as much sexual as supernatural. Perhaps she was one of the lesser vampires at the castle and it was the vampiric lord she just had relations with. So now she's imagining all she's going to be and do when he makes her his new queen.

Or perhaps she just asked a vampire to transform her, and now, as a newly made vampire (?) she daydreams about all she is now going to do that she couldn't do before: replace the current lady of the castle with herself, take revenge on those who slighted her (?), have riches, lovers, etc.

But as you say, Wolfy, she shouldn't count her chickens before they hatch. And even if she gets all she wants, it may not be as she imagined. Vampires, after all, have to worry about vampire hunters...the rewards and fantasy futures we imagine for ourselves are rarely so perfect or trouble free as in our daydreams.

This is a great card! Every time I see it I think she is saying "Party Time!" as she ascends into the world ready for . . . anything! The red speaks of passion and not necessary well thought out action. The look in her eyes of "what mayhem can I cause today". She looks out of control in a very self satisfied way.
Great image when one reflects on the idea of the 7 of Cups acting on the subconscious thought level and the fact that she is literally rising from below.
Cool!
Alisa13

In the second edition, is easy to see that our woman is wrapped in rich, red velvet--it looks to be a cloak slipping off her shoulders, as well as "toasting" with what very much looks like a little after-dinner glass of blood. Her look is very excited, very "ready-or-not-here-I-come!" This makes her seem less like a maid from below stairs and more like girl from a more aristocratic family.

The card in the 2nd edition has, I think, much more of the feeling of a vampire who is risen from her coffin in the cellar, excited and having just a glass to fortify her before she goes on the nightly hunt. The moon has risen and she's envisioning all the exciting things she might do while the moon is high and the night is young. Decisions, decisions

Good point on the unconscious and her being "underground" coming up, Alisa.

I can only agree; this card smacks of anticipation and fantasies of what might happen next. She is preparing herself for a night -literally perhaps - on the rooftiles, in the dark alleys, in the deafening club. I envy her!

I see a woman who is intoxicated, something about the tilt of the glass and the rolling back of the eyes make me think she is not quite in control of herself. Thus, a risky place to be in, especially with stairs. Her temporary state of euphoria will have painful consequences.

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